The Big Move

I see the words written in my journal. When asked how we ended up here on this new journey, I must go back to the pages that hold some of my prayers and reflections. The month was January and the words, – “Should we sell our house”…with a notation, “then what”. This was not something that we had talked about or a thought we had even entertained. I was confused as to why this question was settling itself somewhere inside of me.

February comes and goes, we have formed an outlook, a forecast if you will, for what our plans and goals were for the next five years. Somewhere, after year five — that is when we thought we would revisit the idea of selling our house. But, God had different plans.

Words written in my journal, the month is now April. The idea of selling hasn’t been shaken, even after a set plan in place. I pray for direction and why this thought is being pressed so…I don’t understand it. My husband and I begin to entertain the idea. So, maybe it is sooner that 5 years…maybe we are looking at 3 years or so.

We begin to dream. A house sold, a mortgage paid off…and all of a sudden, life is looking vastly different. A big metal home on a small piece of land. Maybe 2 years from now.

Late July. Maybe, we buy land and pay on it while living in our current house? We look at different plots of land…even made it to the point of taking the steps to making an offer on two. As we moved forward with making an offer, each piece of land disappears…sudden buyers come in and swoop it out of our grasp. We are confused. We are disheartened. But somewhere in our own frustration and our own unknown, the whisper becomes even louder – it is time to sell.

We are now in the first week of August. This is not making any sense. We have no where to go, not even any plans on where we could go. Nothing about this seems right. We wrestled. We doubted. We encouraged each other in our doubts. We prayed. We moved forward.

A text was sent to our friend-and-now-realtor. We were really doing this. She scheduled pictures…two days later she scheduled three showings…the next day we had an offer. Doubts were smashed, Just.Like.That.

The day we got the offer, we went out and drove around…almost aimlessly. Up until this day, we had not had any luck finding anything within a price range we were willing to pay and/or we could not find a location we felt was right. Our hearts were wide open…maybe our destination was not meant to be here. We prayed some more.

Then this day. We quite literally, happened upon the piece of land we now call home. The vision that had been placed in our minds, was here…it even had the large metal shop (though not big and grand, perfectly sufficient).

A long process then began: more praying, more doubting, more unusual circumstances, more detours, more trusting and more surrendering. A process of selling and buying that, altogether, took us two months. It was the craziest experience I have ever been through, ever. To rely on and make drastic decisions based on blind faith and trust, was not something I was not altogether familiar with…but His faithfulness was more than true and His grace was more than sufficient.

This beginning part of our journey, it stretched our faith and our endurance. We were tested and we hit (many) peak moments of stress. Moving is not for the weak, especially when it is a rather sudden thing…an unplanned thing. But there we were, weak…and moving. Many times, I was brought back to a moment I had in February of this year. While in deep contemplation and prayer with God, He challenged, as well as directed, me – “Don’t be afraid to step into obedience. Trust Me”. This kind of obedience and this kind of trust…it is more than I can accomplish on my own. It is only because of Him that my husband and I were able to obey Him in this new journey and it is also only because of Him that we made it through this time. His peace was always just a prayer away and He supplied it freely and perfectly.

This journey we are now on…well, we don’t quite understand it yet ourselves. All we know it has been an interesting one; we also know — that it has only just begun.